148

TICKLER AS THE APOLLO BELVIDERE.

North. You do me cruel injustice, James-were I to prepare a single paragraph, I should stick

Shepherd. Oh! man, hoo I would enjoy to see you stick! stickin a set speech in a ha' fu' o' admirin, that is, wunnerin hunders o' your fellow-citizens, on Parliamentary Reform, for instance, or Slavery in the Wast Indies, or

North. The supposition, sir, is odious; I

Shepherd. No in the least degree odious, sir-but superlatively absurd, and ludicrous far ayont the boun's o' lauchterexcepp that lauchter that torments a' the inside o' a listener and looker-on, an internal earthquake that convulses a body frae the pow till the paw, frae the fingers till the feet, till a' the pent-up power o' risibility bursts out through the mouth, like the lang-smouldering fire vomited out o' the crater o' a volcawno, and then the astonished warld hears, for the first time, what heaven and earth acknowledge by their echoes to be indeed-a Guffaw!

North. James, you are getting extremely impertinent? Shepherd. Nae personality, sir; nae personality sall be alloo'd, in ma presence at least, at a Noctes. That's to say, nae personality towards the persons present-for as to a' the rest o' the warld, men, women, and children, I carena though you personally insult, ane after anither, a' the human race. North. I insult?

Shepherd. Yes-you insult. Haena ye made the haill civileesed warld your enemy by that tongue and that pen o' yours, that spares neither age nor sect?

North. I???

Shepherd. You!!!

Tickler. Come, come, gentlemen, remember where you are, and in whose presence you are sittin; but look here—here is the APOLLO BELVIDERE.

[TICKLER is transformed into Apollo Belvidere.

Shepherd. That's no canny.

North. In his lip "what beautiful disdain !"

Shepherd. As if he were smellin at a rotten egg.

North. There "the Heavenly Archer stands."

Shepherd. I wadna counsel him to shoot for the Guse Medal. Henry Watson' would ding him till sticks.

1 Mr Henry Watson, an accomplished member of the Queen's Body-Guard, the Royal Scottish Archers, is a brother of the distinguished painter, Sir John Watson Gordon.

SHEPHERD AS THE APOLLO BELVIDERE.

149

North. I remember, James, once hearing an outrageous dispute between two impassioned connoisseurs, amateurs, men of vertu, cognoscenti, dilettanti, about this very Apollo Belvidere.

Shepherd. Confoun' me gin he's no monstrous like marble! His verra claes seem to hae drapped aff him—and I'se no pit on my specks, for fear he should pruve to be naked.-What was the natur o' the dispute?

North. Simply whether Apollo advanced his right or left foot

Shepherd. Ane o' the disputants maun hae been a great fule. Shouldna Apollo pit his best fit foremost, that is the richt ane, on such an occasion as shootin a Peethon? Huttut.-Stop a wee-let's consider. Na, it maun be the left fit foremost-unless he was ker-haun'd.' Let's try't.

[The SHEPHERD rises, and puts himself into the attitude of the Apollo Belvidere-insensibly transforming himself into another TICKLER of a shorter and stouter size.

North. I could believe myself in the Louvre, before Mrs Hemans wrote her beautiful poem on the Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy. Were the two brought to the hammer, an auctioneer might knock them down for ten thousand pounds each. Shepherd. Whilk of us is the maist Apollonic, sir?

North. Why, James, you have the advantage of Tickler, in being, as it were, in the prime of youth-for though by the parish register you have passed the sixtieth year-stone on the road of life, you look as fresh as if you had not finished the first stage.

Shepherd. Do you hear that, Mr Tickler?

North. You have also most conspicuously the better of Mr Tickler in the article of hair. Yours are locks-his leeks. Shepherd. Mr Tickler, are you as deaf and dumb's a statute, as weel's as stiff?

North. As to features, the bridge of Tickler's nose-begging his pardon-is of too prominent a build. The arch reminds me of the old bridge across the Esk, at Musselburgh.

Shepherd. What say you to that, Mr Tickler?

North. "'Tis more an antique Roman than a

Shepherd. Mr Tickler?

North. But neither is the nose of the gentle Shepherd pure Grecian.

Tickler. Pure Peebles?

1 Ker-haun'd-left-handed.

150

SHEPHERD AS PAN, AS HERCULES.

Shepherd. Oho! You've fun' the use o' your tongue.
North. Of noses so extremely—

Shepherd. Mine's, I ken,'s a cockit ane. Our mouths? North. Why, there, I must say, gentlemen, there's a wide opening for

is

Tickler. Don't blink the buck-teeth.

Shepherd. Better than nane ava.

North. Of Tickler's attitude I should say generally-that

[Here TICKLER reassumes SOUTHSIDE, and taking the Snuggery at a stride, usurps THE CHAIR, and outstretches himself to his extremest length, with head leaning on the ridge, and his feet some yards off on the fender.

Shepherd (leaping about). Huzzaw-huzzaw-huzzaw !I've beaten him at Apollo! Noo for Pan.

[The SHEPHERD performs Pan in a style that would have

seduced Pomona.

Tickler. Ay-that's more in character.

North. Sufficient, certainly, to frighten an army.
Tickler. The very picture of our Popular Devil.
North. Say rather, with Wordsworth-

"Pan himself,

The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god."

Shepherd. Keep your een on me-keep your een on me— and you'll soon see a change that will strike you wi' astonishment. But rax me ower the poker, Mr North—rax me ower the poker.

[NORTH puts the poker into Pan's paws, and instanter he is
Hercules.

Tickler (clapping his hands). Bravo! Bravissimo!
North. I had better remove the crystal.

(Wheels the circular closer to the hearth.) James, remember the mirror. Tickler. At that blow dies the Nemean lion.

up

[The SHEPHERD, flinging down the poker-club, seems to drag the carcass of the Monster with a prodigious display of muscularity, and then stooping his neck, heaves it over his head, as into some profound abyss.

North. Ducrow's Double!

Shepherd (proudly). Say rather the Dooble, that's Twa, o' Ducraw. Ducraw's nae mair fit to ack Hercules wi' me, than he is to ack Samson.

NORTH AS HERCULES FURENS.

Tickler. I believe it.

151

Shepherd. I could tell ye a droll story about me and Mr Ducraw. Ae nicht I got intil an argument wi' him at the Caffée, about the true scriptral gate o' ackin the Fear o' the Philistines, and I was pressin him geyan hard about his method o' pu'in doun the pillars, when he turns about upon me—and bein' putten to his metal-says, "Mr Hogg, why did not you object to my representing in one scene-and at one timeSamson carrying away the gates of Gaza, and also pulling down the pillars ?"

North. There he had you on the hip, James.

Shepherd. I hadna a word to say for't-but confessed at ance that it's just the way o' a' critics wha stumble ower molehills, and yet mak naething o' mountains. The truth is, that a' us that are maisters in the fine arts, kens ilka ane respectively about his ain airt a thousan' times mair nor ony possible body else—and I thocht on the pedant lecturin Hannibal on war, or ony ither pedant me on poetry, or St Cecilia on music, or Christopher North on literatur, or Sir Isaac Newton on the stars, or

North. Now, James, that you may not say that I ever sulkily or sullenly refuse to contribute my quota of "weeltimed daffin" to the Noctes-behold me in

HERCULES FURENS.

[NORTH off with coat and waistcoat in a jiffy, and goes to work.

Shepherd. That fearsome! Dinna tear your shirt to rags— dinna tear your shirt to rags, sir!

Tickler. The poison searches his marrow-bones now!
Shepherd. His bluid's liquid fire!

Tickler. Lava.

Shepherd. Linens is cheap the noo, to be sure-dinna tear your shirt, sir-dinna tear your shirt. What pains maun a' that shuin' on the breist and collar hae cost Mrs Gentle !

Tickler. O Dejanira! Dejanira! Dejanira!

Shepherd. That out-hercules's Hercules! Foamin at the mouth like a mad dowg! The Epilepsy! The quiverin o' his hauns! The whites o' his een, noo flickerin and noo fixed! Oh! dire misshapen lauchter, drawin his mouth awa up alang the tae side o' his face, outower till ane o' his lugs! Puir Son o' Alknomook!

1 Shuin--sewing.

152

CEDITE ROMANI SCULPTORES, CEDITE GRAII.

Tickler. Alcmena, James.

Shepherd. A' his labours are near an end noo! A' the fifty, if crooded and crammed intil ane, no sae terrible as the last! Loup-loup-loup-tummle-tummle-tummle-sprawl

sprawl-sprawl-row-row-row-roun' about-roun' about -roun' about-like an axle-tree-then ae sudden streek out intil a' his length, and there lies he straught, stiff, and stark, after the dead-thraws, like a gnarled oak-trunk that had keept knottin for a thousan' years.

Tickler. But for an awkward club-foot too much, would I exclaim,

"Cedite Romani imitatores! Cedite Graii.”

Shepherd (raising North from the floor). Do you ken, sir, you fairly tyuck me in and I'm a' in a trummle. It's like Boaz frichtenin Ingleby' wi' his ain ba's.

North. Rather hot work, my dear James. I'm beginning to perspire.

Shepherd (feeling North's forehead). Beginnin till perspire !! Never afore, in this weary warld, was a man in sic an evendoun pour o' sweet! A perspiration-fa'! The same wi' your breist! What? You couldna hae been watter had you stood after a thunner-plump for an hour under a roan.

North. Say spout, James, roan is vulgar-it is Scotch-and your English is so pure now, that a word like that grates harshly on the ear, so that were you in England, you would undeceive and alarm the natives. But let us recur to the subject under spirited discussion immediately before Raphael's Dream-I mean the Jug.

Shepherd. Let us come our wa's in till the fire.

[The Three are again seated at "the wee bit ingle blinking bonnily."

North. Where were we?

Shepherd. Ou ay. I was beginnin to pent a pictur o' you, sir, stickin a speech on Slavery or Reform. Slowly you rise -and at the uprisin "o' the auld man eeloquent" hushed is that assemblage as sleep. But wide awake are a' een-a' fixed on Christopher North, the orator o' the human race.

Tickler. As is usual to say on such occasions-you might hear a pin fall-say a needle, which, having no head, falls lighter.

1 Two famous racket-players, I believe.